the jungle

The Jungle, written by Upton Sinclair in 1906, takes place during the turn of the century in the hazardous stockyards of Chicago’s industrial packing industry. It’s contents, outlining the trials of immigrant as well as American stockyard workers, reformed the course of industrial labor in America.
The story begins with the marriage of Jurgis Rudkus and Ona Lukoszaite, two Lithuanian immigrants who imiigrated to America, along with select members of their extended family, to make a new life for themselves in the prosperous American city of Chicago. The wedding between Jurgis and Ona left the family in great debt. To pay this, the naive Jurgis intended to work tediously to make more money. He finds jobs doing tedious labor in the plants throughout Chicago. Like Jurgis, the rest of his family moved in and out of dangerous, low paying jobs to make enough income to live and pay off their debt. At first, Ona, her step mother, Teta Elzbieta, and Teta Elzbieta’s c...